| |
| NO cloud, no relique of the sunken day | |
| Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip | |
| Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues. | |
| Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge. | |
| You see the glimmer of the stream beneath, | 5 |
| But hear no murmuring: it flows silently, | |
| O’er its soft bed of verdure. All is still, | |
| A balmy night! and though the stars be dim, | |
| Yet let us think upon the vernal showers | |
| That gladden the green earth, and we shall find | 10 |
| A pleasure in the dimness of the stars. | |
| And hark! the Nightingale begins its song, | |
| ‘Most musical, most melancholy’ bird! | |
| A melancholy bird? Oh idle thought! | |
| In Nature there is nothing melancholy. | 15 |
| But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced | |
| With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, | |
| Or slow distemper, or neglected love, | |
| (And so, poor wretch! fill’d all things with himself, | |
| And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale | 20 |
| Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he, | |
| First named these notes a melancholy strain: | |
| And many a poet echoes the conceit; | |
| Poet who hath been building up the rhyme | |
| When he had better far have stretched his limbs | 25 |
| Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell, | |
| By sun or moon-light, to the influxes | |
| Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements | |
| Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song | |
| And of his fame forgetful! so his fame | 30 |
| Should share in Nature’s immortality, | |
| A venerable thing! and so his song | |
| Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself | |
| Be loved like Nature! But ’twill not be so; | |
| And youths and maidens most poetical, | 35 |
| Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring | |
| In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still | |
| Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs | |
| O’er Philomela’s pity-pleading strains. | |
| My Friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt | 40 |
| A different lore: we may not thus profane | |
| Nature’s sweet voices, always full of love | |
| And joyance! ’Tis the merry Nightingale | |
| That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates | |
| With fast thick warble his delicious notes, | 45 |
| As he were fearful that an April night | |
| Would be too short for him to utter forth | |
| His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul | |
Of all its music!
And I know a grove | |
| Of large extent, hard by a castle huge, | 50 |
| Which the great lord inhabits not; and so | |
| This grove is wild with tangling underwood, | |
| And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, | |
| Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths. | |
| But never elsewhere in one place I know | 55 |
| So many nightingales; and far and near, | |
| In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, | |
| They answer and provoke each other’s songs, | |
| With skirmish and capricious passagings, | |
| And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, | 60 |
| And one low piping sound more sweet than all— | |
| Stirring the air with such an harmony | |
| That should you close your eyes, you might almost | |
| Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes, | |
| Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed, | 65 |
| You may perchance behold them on the twigs, | |
| Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, | |
| Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade | |
Lights up her love-torch.
A most gentle Maid, | |
| Who dwelleth in her hospitable home | 70 |
| Hard by the castle, and at latest eve | |
| (Even like a Lady vowed and dedicate | |
| To something more than Nature in the grove) | |
| Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes, | |
| That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment’s space, | 75 |
| What time the moon was lost behind a cloud, | |
| Hath heard a pause of silence; till the moon | |
| Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky | |
| With one sensation, and those wakeful birds | |
| Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, | 80 |
| As if some sudden gale had swept at once | |
| A hundred airy harps! And she hath watched | |
| Many a nightingale perch giddily | |
| On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze, | |
| And to that motion tune his wanton song | 85 |
| Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head. | |
| |
| Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve, | |
| And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell! | |
| We have been loitering long and pleasantly, | |
| And now for our dear homes.—That strain again! | 90 |
| Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe, | |
| Who, capable of no articulate sound, | |
| Mars all things with his imitative lisp, | |
| How he would place his hand beside his ear, | |
| His little hand, the small forefinger up, | 95 |
| And bid us listen! And I deem it wise | |
| To make him Nature’s play-mate. He knows well | |
| The evening-star; and once, when he awoke | |
| In most distressful mood (some inward pain | |
| Had made up that strange thing, an infant’s dream), | 100 |
| I hurried with him to our orchard-plot, | |
| And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once, | |
| Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently, | |
| While his fair eyes, that swam with undropped tears, | |
| Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well!— | 105 |
| It is a father’s tale: But if that Heaven | |
| Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up | |
| Familiar with these songs, that with the night | |
| He may associate joy.—Once more, farewell, | |
| Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell. | 110 |
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